Matthew 5:14 You are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. I. The moral qualities enjoined in Christianity are in the highest degree natural — not artificial or secondary. The human mind was constructed so that every faculty in its organization tends to produce good qualities. It is better adapted to good than bad. The bad is something interposed between the original creative design and the execution. Irreligion is artificial. II. There is a moral constitution by reason of which Christian qualities seem admirable to men. The eye was not made any more for beauty in the outward world than a man's moral nature was made for beauty in the moral world. Men oppose light and yet light is pleasant to them. III. It is upon this state of facts that Christ ordained that men should carry their moral faculties up to the highest degree of excellence. IV. The success of the gospel was made to depend not on preaching, but upon living men. V. The impressions which a Church makes on the moral consciousness of the community in which it byes is a fair test of its life and power. (H. W. Beecher.) I. The holy and exemplary lives of Christians will naturally attract the eyes of unbelievers. By so doing will engage them in some serious reflections upon the Christian religion. II. The holy and exemplary lives of Christians provoke men to a curious observation and examination of them, and also of the grounds and principles from which they proceed. III. The holy and exemplary lives of Christians will be a sure means of recommending them to the favour and esteem, love and friendship, of unbelievers; and consequently a sure means of gaining opportunities of conversing familiarly with them, insinuating truth into them, and making them willing and easy to receive it. IV. The holy and exemplary lives of Christians will so powerfully represent to unbelievers the reasonableness and excellency of the Christian religion, as well as the usefulness and advantage of it, towards the present and future happiness and well-being of mankind, that they will be led to examine into the grounds of it. Hence it appears that we ought frequently to contemplate the examples of good men, out of which there are so many and so great advantages to be drawn. We should learn in them to see our own faults, and to mend them. (Sir William Dawes, Bart. , D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.WEB: You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill can't be hidden. |
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